


The Chalet Girls

by thankyouturtle



Category: Chalet School - Brent-Dyer
Genre: Band Fic, Community: au_bingo, Documentaries, Gen, Screenplay/Script Format
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-06
Updated: 2010-07-06
Packaged: 2017-10-10 10:04:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/98502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thankyouturtle/pseuds/thankyouturtle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Excerpt from the ultimate documentary on the first 'girl band', The Chalet Girls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Chalet Girls

**Author's Note:**

> Written for au_bingo, for the prompt AU: Band

Excerpt from The Chalet Girls: The Last Word. Episode 2 - First Rise, First Fall

FRIEDA VON AHLEN / BASSIST: It amazes me that there's still interest in the group. [laughs] Yes, I know everyone says that we were ground-breakers, but it seemed like we were just having a good time. We were doing something that we all loved, and we were all friends...

SIMONE LECOUTIER / RHYTHM GUITAR: Oh, we were ground-breakers all right. I still get letters - emails, too these days, from girls, saying they want to do what we did. But it didn't start off that way. At least, none of us ever expected anything to come of it, apart from maybe a few high school dance performances.

GISELA MENSCH / LEAD GUITAR: Right from the beginning I knew we were doing something different from the other groups out there. Did I expect us to become so big? No, no, of course not. But Madame did.

GRIZEL SHEPPARD / DRUMS: Madame always knew what she was doing. I'm convinced of that, absolutely. She was ahead of her time, so we became ahead of ours. But Joey's the one who should really tell you about the beginning.

JOEY MAYNARD / VOCALIST: How did it all begin? With Madge, of course. I was still only a kid, just, you know, wanting to be exactly like my big sister, and my big sister was into Rock 'n' Roll. She started learning guitar, and I used to sing along with her. Then she used to play and I would sing, and then she started teaching me to play the guitar. I was too young to think that there was anything more to it than just my cool big sister wanting to spend some time with me. I'm not sure exactly when that morphed into her getting me gigs. I didn't think of them as gigs back then, either, it was just me playing folk music during the Church Fete or what have you, and I'd get some money for it. Money was pretty tight around our place, you understand. I felt like I was doing my bit towards keeping the household running.

GRIZEL: Jo was always singing. We were from the same village - I'm a few years older than her, so we weren't friends exactly, because we weren't in the same class. My father was always asking me why I wasn't the one who was singing, why I wasn't as good as that Bettany girl. [laughs] I was a better guitar player than her, though.

JOEY: I hated playing the guitar. Sooner or later my fingers would stumble over each other and I'd play the wrong chord, or my strumming would be out of time. Or I'd get so lost in the singing that I'd just forget to play. Madge would get so angry! I'd try and do better, and I would for a while, and then I'd forget myself again, and she'd get angry all over again. She started to realise that I was no musician, not really. I think that's why she became interested in Grizel.

GRIZEL: Things started getting pretty rough at home. I won't go into it. That rubbish biography that came out a few years ago mostly had it wrong - no, there weren't any beatings. But no teenager likes to hear her parents screaming at each other every night. That's all I'll say. Madame knew all about it and said I could always get my homework done around at their place. After a while she casually asked if I'd like to accompany Jo when she sang. I was so grateful to her that I'd have done just about anything she asked of me.

JOEY: Our styles didn't exactly mesh, at first. Grizel was - and is - a very mechanical player. I don't mean that as an insult; she wants to play music exactly as it's written. I prefer to go with the way it feels. We didn't really see eye to eye when we were practicing.

GRIZEL: Jo used to drive me insane. She still can, when she gets going. She knew how she wanted to perform something, and she wouldn't listen to me when I tried to offer a different interpretation. We nearly came to blows more than once - I have a temper, and she was very passionate. But Madame kept us both grounded, and it was thanks to her that the two of us started getting a bit of a following. There was a local radio station - they got us in to play a few times. I won't say we became local celebrities, but the boys at school certainly began to take a bit of notice of me.

JOEY: I never had time for the other kids at school. I was friendly enough, and would have liked to have had mates, but Madge was determined that I should hurry home each day and practice. So no, our first small taste of fame didn't make much difference to me in that wasy. But it did bring Simone into our lives.

SIMONE: Joey was... well, she was my first crush. I didn't know it was a crush then, of course! I had a sheltered childhood, compared to children these days; it wasn't until I'd been in the music industry for some time that I even heard the word lesbian, and much longer before I applied it to myself. But Jo, she was special. I had a rough time at school - growing up as the daughter of French immigrants, after the war, I was still viewed with some suspicion by the other school children. And then there was Joey, one of the only girls who would give me the time of day, with this beautiful golden voice... I felt like she was an angel. I wanted her to notice me so desperately. I thought if I learned guitar she'd dump Grizel as her accompanimest and pick me instead.

JOEY: Simone had always kind of been in the peripheral, this weird mopey kid that no one liked. I never really thought about her much. Then - and I remember this distinctly - one afternoon when I got home she was sitting on my door-step. She had this absolutely tragic look on her face, and she said, "Joey Bettany! You must have no other guitarist but me! I will show you!" and she started playing. And I liked it. It - you know - it put me in a quandary. Grizel and I were friends - but Simone was a better guitar player. I didn't want to hurt Grizel, but I knew who Madge would choose, when she heard Simone play.

SIMONE: To this day I don't know how I had the balls - excuse me, the courage to do it. I remember knocking on the door, and Joey opening it, and me saying, "Please, Miss Bettany, won't you listen if I play you a song?" She had this look on her face, I know she was thinking, "Poor kid", that she couldn't bare to turn me away when I was so keen. But as I played her face changed. I had talent, and Joey knew it. But it wasn't really up to her, it was up to Madame.

GRIZEL: I didn't know until much later how close I came that day to losing the only good thing I had in my life. Luckily - and it was luck, I know that, it was pure chance - Madame had already set her sights on more than just a little local fame. She knew that a folk singer and a halfway-decent guitarist would never make it. She decided what she needed was a band. She'd already ordered a drum kit, and was busy looking for some other talented kids to add to her line-up. So when Joey told her about Simone, she came straight over to talk to me. She told me that she thought, with my talents, I'd make an amazing drummer - which was unfortunate, as it meant she'd have to look for another guitarist. Very tactful of her. I didn't resent Simone for taking my place at all, and when I heard there were going to be more band members I got excited.

SIMONE: The three of us started practicing together while Madame looked for a bass player. We got on alright - like a house on fire. But - well, it was still the first time I'd ever really felt happy. I felt like I belonged somewhere. I got to spend time with Joey, and some of her coolness rubbed off on me a little at school.

GRIZEL: It was a weird time for me. I was happy at school, and then after school we'd practice, and that was OK, but I'd be staying there as long as possible in order to avoid going home.

JOEY: Madge had heard about a couple of singers in London, girls our age who performed as "the Appleblossom sisters".

GISELA: Frieda and I had been pushed into a musical career early by our parents. We played guitars and sang, similar to how Jo and Grizel started their careers. But folk music was becoming less popular, and rock 'n' roll was starting to take off. Father wasn't wedded to the idea of folk, he just wanted us to get famous. So when Madame approached him, he took her up on her offer.

FRIEDA: I'm not sure that he would have said yes to anyone else. Madame just had something about her which made you trust her. That was what made her such a successful manager for girls, and what let her run such a star-studded talent agency. Even the most show-business of parents could see that Madame was going to do right by their daughters.

JOEY: The move to London became necessary almost at once. Nothing was going to come of us where we were, in Devon. But in London, someone was sure to notice us. And they did.

GRIZEL: London! I was glad to be rid of my parents, and I was sure we'd be the toast of the town in a very short time. In fact, we were there a whole year before we were scouted by a small record label. I know now that that was a short amount of time, but back then it seemed forever. But then we were discovered by Sir James, and suddenly we went from high school girls to celebrities.

SIMONE: People are often surprised when they hear that Joey was the one who wrote our first hit. They know her for her voice, and for those glam romance books she wrote back in the 60's, but they don't know that she wrote 'Margaret'. It wasn't a number one, or anything, but it got us noticed.

JOEY: 'Margaret'! [laughs] It's absolute drivel, really. It's the music that made that song, not the lyrics. That was Margia Stevens - at the time she wanted to be a classical pianist, but it was my sister's birthday coming up and I wanted to surprise her. I talked Margia into doing something a little more rock'n'roll, and Gisela got everyone to practice playing. We had a concert on her birthday, and we played our usual set and finished with 'Margaret'. Something about it really just appealed to the audience.

GISELA: We were starting to get a bit of a following, and we had a few songs that were always popular. But the way that the crowd reacted to 'Margaret' - wow!

FRIEDA: What I remember was Madame's reaction. She was overcome - she was so happy to know that we really did love her. But, of course, her business-sense was also saying: this is it, my girls are finally getting noticed. She came up when we had finished and gave everyone a big hug.

DAME SYBIL RUSSELL / ACTRESS / DAUGHTER OF MADGE BETTANY: Mummy would often talk about that night as being the first step on the road to success. It became a yearly celebration after that - not just because it was her birthday, but because that was the day she knew that she could achieve everything she wanted - more than she wanted! And that was the day she met Daddy, of course.

JOEY: Of all of my sister's husbands, Jem was always my favourite. He was like a father to me - I never knew my actual father. We stayed close for a very long time, even after he and Madge split up. He even introduced me to the man who eventually became my husband.

SIMONE: Sir James was... he was a study. In many ways he was symbolic of the music industry at that time. It wasn't normal, you know, to have an all-girls group. It still isn't, to a large extent. If they did, they were expected to be all singers, like the Supremes. It was more usual to have a female singer and a male band. Girls weren't meant to "rock out". And people didn't know how to treat us. Some wanted to dismiss us as untalented hacks, while others labeled us as temptresses.

GISELA: That's how Madame got her name. Not many people know that. Some church man was quoted in the paper as calling her "no better than a pimp, pushing young girls into an evil and corrupting industry". Those were his exact words! Which Grizel read it she started calling her 'Madame', as a joke, and it stuck.

GRIZEL: I think it was Gisela who came up with the nicname... She said it was me? [laughs] Well, whoever it was, it stuck.

FRIEDA: After Sir James discovered us, things really started to happen. We got signed to the label - they were only a small label then, Sir James had just started the company up. Madame really got us a good contract, too. As usual, she knew what she was doing!

JOEY: We were launched, projected almost, into the spotlight. It's such a cliche, to say "OVernight we became household names" but for us it was almost true. And we weren't prepared for it. We wouldn't have known how to prepare for it. Suddenly everyone wanted us, everyone wanted to know our opinion on everything, there was so much pressure on us. It wasn't so bad for most of us. I had Madge for support; Frieda and Gisela each had their parents who kept them grounded, mostly. Simone's parents weren't close, but she had a cousin in London who kept her in check. But Grizel - well. She'd come from a loveless home, we all knew that. But suddenly she felt like she was universally adored. It hit her in the worst possible way.


End file.
